Old Army Days Photos

I was digging though some old slide trays from my military days and stumbled upon some photos taken while I was in the Army stationed at Ft. Bragg. I got a kick out of them so I posted them in my Photo Archive link. Just have to click on the thumbnails to enlarge them.

Being a military photographer was a really special time of my life. An experience I’ll never forget. I learned so much in the military and actually got to do what I love. Make photographs and write articles. I also met some great friends like my buddy Gerry Hoyum who I hope to somehow get up to visit in Northern Minnesota. This post if for you Gerry Hoyum my good old Army Photog buddy.

Enjoy!

Back to Woooooooork!

It’s been a wonderful, restful summer, and I must admit I hate seeing it come to an end. It’s also been great having my daughter Andei living here with me. She also starts her senior year of HS next week after attending schools in Italy and being home schooled for the past 3 years, so this will be a big change for her. She is an excellent student so I know she will do just fine.

Education has changed so dramatically over the past 15 years, as far as the way instruction can now be delivered to students. I’ve been teaching online all weekend from my home office, something I would never had imagined 15 years ago. In fact…I spend twice as much time teaching via distance learning than I do as the sage on the stage in the traditional classroom environment and that in my opinion is a good thing. I have students from as far away as Iraq and Afganastan and I love the challenge of making Art History come alive via the internet.

The sophisticated instructional software tools educators now have at their disposal makes teaching online every bit as viable as the traditional classroom and offers students so many more creative options for attaining their education, college and career goals.

My daughter Andei for example took her entire junior year of High School online using Blackboard and loved it.  I truly believe she learned a great deal in addition to developing a sense of discipline to set goals each day to get online and accomplish the assignments.

I’ve written on this subject many times over the past few years and I am still excited about the incredible potential of distance learning and harnessing the technological power of the web to deliver instruction to anyone interested in furthering his/her eduction.  Faculty members are also empowered like never before because we can teach for schools any where in the world.

I’m still excited, enthusiastic and passionate about teaching after 25+ years in the profession and a big reason for this is the new creative options the internet (distance learning) affords me as an educator.  My constant goal is to make my online classes every bit as viable, interesting and dynamic as my traditional classroom lectures and labs.  Thankfully there are a host of new and powerful communications tools that are making it easier and less time consuming to do this.

Yes…summer is over however the rest and rejuvenation I got from a light teaching load the past 3 months has got me jazzed to take on the challenges of a full teaching load and my freelance adjunct commitments. As I posted to my students today.

It’s time to get this party started!

Photographing in Ireland, May 09

A Very Special Birthday Celebration

It was really special for me to be able to help get  my Dad (Bill Keough) and his brother Joe together in St. Charles, Missouri after almost ten years.  These guys were from the “Great Generation” – WWII Veterans and just all around great family men and patriots.

What a wonderful and very special visit we had with my Dad’s brother’s family in Missouri.  The St. Louis area is crawling with Keough’s. My Uncle Jo and Aunt Belle had eight children and now have over 29 Grandchildren and something like 10 great grand children.

It was so good to listen to my Dad and his brother Joe reminisce about growing up in New York City.

My Uncle told the story about the last time he saw Mimi before she died. She was sitting in her room with rosary beads in one hand a beer in the other. That was so like my Grandmother Mimi. We made it a point to visit my Grandparents grave while we were there.

He also shared stories of growing up on Bleaker Street and then Brooklyn with my Dad and their other brother Bud who is now deceased.

I can only imagine what it must have been like growing up during the depression years. Most people today cannot fathom what that must have been like. My Grandfather who we called Pop was a truck driver and not exactly the most amiable person around. He had a terrible temper and a grumpy disposition. My Grandmother Mimi (Anna) basically put up with the big, brash lug all her married life. I only remember him when he was older and apparently a little more mellowed and personable.

I love the story of when he would get up on the weekends and get dressed up in his white straw hat and white suit looking like a big country gentleman and just stand by the front of his Brooklyn home watching people walk by and after a awhile he’d cross the street and lean next to another stoop before finally heading out to the local corner bar. What a character he must have been and what a difficult childhood my father and his brother’s must have had putting up with his wrath when he came home drunk.

I don’t know why I waited so many years to visit with my cousins. For me it has been 34 years since I last saw them. I rode my motorcycle through St. Charles when I got out of college on my way to California.

We spent Joe’s entire Birthday  visiting, telling stories, sharing memories and just getting to know one another again after all these years. I can see so many similarities in our families, personalities and traits.

Happy 89th Birthday Uncle Joe!

I am not going to let too much time go by without making an effort to see my cousins again or get them to North Carolina for a visit.  What was really great was seeing my Dad and his brother together laughing and enjoying each others company surrounded by their loving family.

This visit made me realize just how precious family is and how important it is to keep family ties, stay connected and develop real relationships with our family members.  It’s been 35 years since I had been to Missouri to see Uncle and his big family.  It’s cliche to say how the time has flown by and as I get older it becomes more and more evident to me just how important it is to stay connected and support our extended families.

Summer Ending Fast

I really haven’t had much of a break since the college let out July 30th.  I taught a Blackboard Online teaching workshop to 20 faculty the last Friday of July and then ran Art Camp all last week for the Arts Council of Carteret County.

In between all that I’ve been retooling all my online classes for Fall semester and working on the Vasa Project as I mentioned in my previous blog post.  I will admit to sneaking away to Wilmington this past weekend to visit some of my favorite pubs.  The beers at the Slainte Irish Pub were very tasty and dinner at Cafe Phoenix was superb!

Tomorrow its off the St. Louis, Missouri to meet my Dad and brother at my Uncle’s home.  I have 7 cousins I haven’t seen in over 30 years and this will be the first time my Dad will get to see his brother Joe Keough.  I will be sure to bring my camera to document the event.

Andei is taking Driver’s Education this week and starting back to high school later this month.  It’s been a relaxing and yet productive summer which began with an awesome 10 day trip to Ireland with my daughter Andei.  Life is good!

Oh yea…joined Facebook. Hmmmm – not sure if that was a good idea – Now I’ll never get away from my laptop.

The Vasa Project

Considering the first 2 weeks of August are technically my vacation from my primary teaching job I have been juggling a variety of things.  I am running Art Camp for 40 Middle School children up at the college.  In fact I need to get myself ready to head over there in a little while.  I’ve been involved with Art Camps for the past 20 years and must admit I enjoy seeing the looks on the kids faces when they are making their first photograph, drawing or painting.  I’ll post some photos of the kids making art later in the week.  Click here for photos from last years camp.

I’m also spending most of my afternoons upgrading and retooling my online courses for Fall.  I’m adding some new features, quizzes and redesigning them based on new things (technologies) I’ve learned over the past few years.

BUT….in addition to all this I am now a part of the Vasa Project.

“The VASA Project is designed as a global learning environment focused on photography, digital video, criticism, visual studies, new media, and other emerging areas, such as Web 2.0 social networking environments. All the VASA Project workshops are delivered online in English, using open-source and Internet-based interactive environments. The VASA Project is based upon the union of two familiar environments: the traditional workshop model and networked digital media technology.”

I see this as an entrepreneurial venture for me in addition to an opportunity to work with very creative individuals outside the college environment.  I’ve  begun building an Intro to Digital Imaging class on their Moodle server.  Here are the course descriptions.

I’m also using a new “open source” application called Voice Thread.  I can see this as an excellent to tool to conduct online critiques for my online art and photo classes.  So it doesn’t look like I’m going to get much of a “real” vacation before school kicks in and I start teaching my 8 or possibly 9 online classes but I’m having fun and learning lots of new stuff and that’s ok with me. Here is a Voice thread of the Vasa faculty giving introducing themselves.

Click here for additional workshop information